The Canaveilles Group is the basal metasedimentary succession of late Neoproterozoic and Cambrian age outcropping in the Pyrenees. Etymology The Canaveilles Group, sometimes also called Canaveilles Series, was named after its type locality Canaveilles, a small town in the French départment Pyrénées-Orientales. Geographical occurrence The areal distribution of the Canaveilles Group centers on the eastern Pyrenees. Further north in the Montagne Noire, the southernmost promontory of the Massif Central, a comparable succession occurs, the la Salvetat-Saint-Pons Series. The Upper Alcudian of the Iberian peninsula also displays great similarities with the Canaveilles Group. The group's main area of distribution focusses on the type locality and the surroundings of Mount Canigou. Yet the group can also be encountered in the Cadí nappe on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Stratigraphy Main sequence At its type locality the marine Canaveilles Group reaches a thickness of 3000 meters, otherwise its thickness varies between 2000 and 4000 meters. On Mount Canigou the group's base overlies leptynitic, so-called “transitional gneisses” with underlying augen gneisses. The group's age reaches back to the Ediacarian, to about 580 million years. Essentially the group consists of shales (with subordinate black shales) and greywackes, intercalated are carbonates and rhyodacites. In the Cadí nappe archeocyathid-bearing limestones occur during the lower Cambrian. With the onset of the middle Cambrian the Canaveilles Group is replaced by the lower metamorphic (greenschist facies conditions, chlorite zone), flyschoid Jujols Group, to be more specific by its basal formation, the olistostrome-rich Tregurà Formation. Carbonate interlayers Within its schists the Canaveilles Group contains at its type locality four carbonate interlayers which have been metamorphosed to marbles and calc schists (from top to bottom): calcsilicates calcareous marbles dolomitic marbles basal calcareous marbles Basal calcareous marbles Intercalated at the base of the group are about 150 meters of calcareous marbles (fr. marbres de base). They include five layers of calcareous marble of sometimes massive habit and a layer of impure marbles that has formed from calcarenites. Within the last layer there are gneissic bands reaching ten centimeters and more in thickness; they are composed of calcsilicates and probably represent marly horizons. Dolomitic marbles The fine-grained, grey to cream coloured dolomitic marbles develop the mineral chondrodite. In some layers also clinochlore and phlogopite appear. Intercalated between the dolomitic marbles and the overlying calcareous marbles are layers of quartzite and greywackes. Calcareous marbles The white, sometimes also greyish calcareous marbles are banded. They